Find peace at Heavenly Harp concert

Musikfest's Chamber series was unusually strong on harp music this year, with two concerts featuring this heavenly instrument.

On Aug. 28, a mother-daughter harp duet who actually call themselves "Heavenly Harp" will perform at Union Lutheran Church in Schnecksville in a free concert of classical and religious-oriented music.

The concert, what the duo calls its Serenity Concert, will do more than just provide an hour or two of pleasant entertainment. It will also, according to the group, helps regulate heart rate and blood pressure, increase oxygen efficiency and regulate brain waves. Harp music also improves immune function and can help a person prepare for surgery.

The harpists are Karin and Joy Gunderson, based in Phoenix.

Karin, the mother of the duo, said she had majored in music in college, but took up the harp about 15 years ago, and eventually started playing in hospice settings. She saw that the harp provided so much mental and physical benefit to the listeners that she and her daughter, a church music graduate of St. Olaf College who had studied harp with the harpist for the Minnesota Orchestra, went on the road. They view their concerts as ministry.

The group tours extensively — this month the duo will have performed in churches in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, before moving across Pennsylvania from Ellwood City to Schnecksville. Sue Hartney, director of music at Union Lutheran Church, says she met them at a conference in Seattle in 2011 and invited them to play here.

The duo also has produced a number of CDs. These include a five-CD set for use in stress relief, and several recordings which include not only harp music, but also combinations for harp and voice as well as other instruments.

Gunderson says that their program will consist of light classics and hymns, when the audience can sing along. She said she will also play flute during part of the program.

Gunderson says those coming to hear the program should sit in front, "where the benefits are the greatest."

The men's chorus Summer Harmony has become a musical fixture of the Lehigh Valley, not just in the summertime but also year-round.

The ensemble of about 100 men was established in 1991 as a way for avid male singers to keep themselves musically occupied when other ensembles took the season off. They persuaded the late George Boyer to lead; he conducted Summer Harmony until his retirement in 2007. Claire Neamand then took over the podium.

Since then, Summer Harmony has put on programs on the lighter side, but hasn't shied away from the more serious and demanding. In 2005 it joined the Allentown Symphony in a staging of Arnold Schoenberg's "A Survivor from Warsaw," Op. 46.

Summer Harmony's annual get-together with the Allentown Band on Aug. 23 at Parkland High School auditorium features a mixture of the light and serious, in a concert that marks one of the 150th anniversary years of the Civil War.

In mirror-image form, the program begins with Summer Harmony singing a selection of period songs, including "In the Good Old Summertime," "Johnny Comes Marching Home," "Battle Cry of Freedom" and others.

The Allentown Band then takes over, playing a couple of numbers, including Stephen Foster's "Gentle Annie," with Jason Ham on euphonium.

After intermission, the band is up first with two selections, including a musical setting of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, narrated by Emile Guida.

Summer Harmony then returns with six songs, including some period pieces.

The two ensembles combine to finish the program with three selections that include the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Heard with joined vocal and instrumental ensembles, it's a remarkably powerful and moving experience.

The all-string Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble I had never heard of until I saw a news release on its upcoming Philadelphia concert. To make the discovery even more pleasant, the concert at the Episcopal Church of the Advocate is free.

Virtuosi conductor Daniel Spalding gave a hint about the reason for the group's seeming obscurity: for the last several years, at least, it has been giving more concerts on the road than on its home turf.

Sunday's concert will be performed in memory of a long-time supporter and friend of the orchestra, Eleanor Farmer, who died recently.

Farmer, a member for several decades of the Church of the Advocate and an avid singer in the choir, was instrumental in having the orchestra present a yearly free concert at the church, which has been supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts as well as private donors.